In 2017 we reported on the
work we’ve been doing with the Skills Network in south London to nurture
less siloed communities in the context of the post-Brexit debate. Reactions to
that article encouraged us to go one step further in deepening our learning
with other groups trying to build collective forms of support and social
justice. For most people divisive rhetoric isn’t
new; they’ve been developing ways to counter it for years. Here are three more lessons
from our experience.

1.
We have more in
common than divides us, but our situations are never equal.

”You’ve got to remember when you bring all these people together in the
beginning…they’ve got to have someone to shout at…Both sides have got to be
equal. It’s got to be a level playing field
otherwise it doesn’t work…(to do this) you need to create a ‘them and us’
situation...But the goal is to work towards the ‘us.’” (Steve Scott,
long-term Groundswell activist)

When
we started Skills Network we were keen to focus on our shared experiences and
values. We wanted the space to feel safe and positive, to ‘enact’ our ideal
world, so we played down differences between us. But as we developed as a
cooperative, frustrations at these differences came out in unexpected, sometimes
disruptive ways, forcing us to think about more explicit ways to confront
them.

The
reality is that there are inequalities between people—financial and in
terms of status, confidence to voice opinions, general life opportunities and
expectations. These differences are often internalised, glossed over by
well-meaning attempts to ‘bridge divides’ and ‘build
communities.’ It’s difficult to get the balance right between acknowledging
them and letting them define the group, but some groups manage this balancing
act better than others.

Groundswell, for example, facilitates peer-to-peer support
and advocacy around homelessness, and for many years has been training local councils
and other organisations in user involvement.
The organisation started in the 1990s as a movement "very explicitly campaigning for the
homeless and roofless–engaging with people who were having those experiences
and following their agenda" as Simone Helleren from
Groundswell puts it. Over time it grew into a network of smaller groups doing
localised ‘self-help’ which started to advocate for more fundamental changes to
policies and attitudes around housing.

Groundswell
recognised the crucial importance of taking the knowledge and anger of people
at the sharp end of inequality seriously. The group pioneered the ‘Speakout’
model which brought together self-help groups, people experiencing homelessness,
and people working in the sector to learn from each other through workshops and
debates. These events brought homeless people into direct dialogue with
policymakers and gave them an opportunity to express their opinions.

Allowing
space for those who had experienced homelessness to share their feelings with
those responsible for making and implementing housing policy helped the group to
move past these divisions and laid the groundwork for years of productive
collaboration. Over time speakouts evolved into citizens’ juries which were at
the centre of the group’s radical inquiry into UK housing policy: the Homeless
People’s Commission. The key was to confront, not
suppress, the injustices and inequalities that divide people, and to build
connections and communities that eventually overcame them.

2.
Create frameworks that recognise we all
have things to give and take.

“The
difference between traditional charity and timebanking? It’s the power thing,
isn’t it? It’s more equal. You get to feel good about yourself by giving and
remembering ‘oh yeah I am actually quite good at things.’ And you get help back
as well -rather than one set of people are always the givers and then the other
lot are the passive beneficiaries.” (Alison
Paule, Paxton Green Timebank Coordinator).

We
initially thought at Skills Network that a flat pay-rate and shared
decision-making would ensure everyone’s contributions felt equally valued. But ‘conventional’
hierarchies kept creeping into our dynamics.
Searching for learning from other organisations in South London, we discovered
Rushey Green and Paxton Green Timebanks.
The timebanking movement seeks to create ‘operating
systems’ which consciously facilitate exchange and support in a way that makes
clear that “nobody is better than anybody
else.” They do this by focusing on ‘proactive’ time as the principal unit
of currency.

For every hour participants ‘deposit’ in a
timebank they can ‘withdraw’ the equivalent in support when they need something—“ironing
or accounting…an hour is an hour.” In this context being ‘in need’ is not
stigmatizing or shameful—it’s a normal part of everyone’s life.

Timebanks globally have different
characteristics. In south London, they bring together individuals who live very
near each other but otherwise are worlds apart. Paule notes that “it quite surprises
people to start with, probably more so for the posher people – ‘oh these are
different people that I don’t usually interact with! And they are quite nice actually."One older woman member
described the effects of a friendship that had grown out of her involvement:

“My friend who subsequently has died, she actually
lived down the bottom of my road and I would never have listened and talked to
her. She was afro-Caribbean, from Jamaica…I would never had actually been able
to [sighing] comprehend, understand certain aspects of other people lives if it
wasn’t for her.”

But
these new relationships and insights don’t happen overnight. They evolve very
gradually as people engage in mutual support. “When you first get involved it may be quite
passive” according to Robert, a member of both
timebanks, “just coming along (to an
event), drinking a cup of tea. But the aim is to give people the opportunity to
grow, to get more involved.”

This
framework acknowledges that some people have had knock-backs in their lives and
may need support in taking the lead on something—perhaps from something “really small like (starting) a knitting
group…helping them think through the steps…Where do you want to have the group?
What day of the week? What time? We’ve got spare kettles, tea, biscuits.”

The
careful, slow work that happens within timebanks may seem insignificant to the
untrained eye, focusing as it does on tiny interactions and exchanges and incremental
shifts in people’s understanding of themselves and each other. These shifts are
difficult to capture and count, but they can have profound resonance because
they break down the sense of difference that those involved often have about
each-other.

“It felt very different, completely different from anything that had
been going on before. You started to feel as if you have got some value
to give. And lo and behold somebody is giving you something that you
never expected.” (Marilyn, Paxton Green member)

3. Having an equal conversation is a deliberate, political act.

Even
a single conversation in which people feel like they are interacting as equals
can help to shift the status quo in hierarchies, but it’s a challenge, and one
that often overwhelmed us at Skills Network. ‘Transformative organising’
approaches (which came out of community organising in the US) have taught us a
lot about how to do it better. It starts by acknowledging the entrenched
hierarchies that play out in all our interactions, but which are often more obvious
to those with less power who are used to subtly deferring to, agreeing with or
apologising to those who have more.

These
approaches use specific techniques to slowly equalise these hierarchies, like ‘Intentional Peer
Support,’ which was developed in
the 1990s as a challenge to top-down mental health services but has since become
a wider method in community organising. Core to this method is the disruption of
the tendency to replicate unequal ‘helping’ dynamics by building awareness of
the power roles we all fall into, and by finding ways to be more aware of our
own tendencies and assumptions.

Their
listening and questioning techniques help people engage with each other with real
curiosity and openness, and form connections across divides, shifting from
notions of ‘helping’ towards ones of ‘learning together.’ Key to transformative
approaches is the conviction that they form a continual and relentless process,
and one that will keep being slightly undone by the rest of the world—meaning the
job is never ‘done.’

Many people are looking for new ways to
heal divides and that’s heartening. But enacting these sentiments in a
long-lasting way is complex and challenging, especially when some people face
very real resource shortages and others may have internalised very different notions
of their power. If we are to come together across the entrenched divisions and
disillusionment that many people are feeling, our starting point is clear:
engage as equals.

That means a continuous, ever-evolving
process in which we must all be self-aware and open to being challenged again
and again.
It involves challenging the structures and values that set up inequalities
between us through our daily interactions and with everyone we meet. Our plea
is for people who have been relatively inoculated from the effects of divisive
rhetoric and policy to really try and ‘see’ the inspirational alternatives that
are already being enacted around them—and bring their knowledge and skills to
this existing, slow, un-photogenic, but potentially transformative experience.

About the authors

Hannah Rollins, Kiran Nihalani and Peroline Ainsworth
are founding members of Skills Network, a women's cooperative in South London
which has brought together women with widely different experiences, many at the
sharp end of inequality. Skills Network seeks to challenge stories and policies
that entrench inequality and poverty through non-hierarchical working
practices, participatory research and striving to learn from each other as
equals.

Kiran Nihalani and Peroline Ainsworth co-founded Skills Network in 2011. Prior to
this, Kiran worked in the third sector in frontline and campaigning roles. She
is currently undertaking PhD research about small-scale, non-hierarchical
models of creating welfare. Peroline is a special educational needs
teacher and social researcher. Previously she worked in development in Africa
and the Middle East.

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